Chitinolytic assay for <i>Trichoderma</i> species isolated from different geographical locations of Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

Chitin is the most commonly available polymer on the earth. Cell walls of most of the fungi are made up of chitin. As we all know that Trichoderma produces a wide variety of cell wall degrading enzymes (CWDEs) such as chitinase, xylanase, glucanase and cellulase. Out of these CWDEs chitinase is of prime importance as it is the building block of fungal cell walls. For the detection of chitinase activity we used a simple and sensitive method. We supplemented the chitinase detection media with coloidal chitin as a carbon source and bromocresol purple as pH indicator dye. This method is easy, sensitive, reproducible and economical. Colloidal chitin derived from sea-shells and commercial chitin is supplemented as carbon source in chitinase broth and solid media for the detection of chitinolytic and exochitinase activity. The chitinolytic activities were ranged from 6.2 to 3.9 and 4.8 to 1.8 mg/ml and exochitinase activities ranged from 0.0133 × 10^-3  to 0.0076 × 10^-3 and 0.00609 to 0.0055 × 10^-3 U/ml), respectively, with colloidal chitin derived from commercial chitin and sea-shells.

Keywords: Bromocresol purple, chitin, N-acetyl-β-D-glucosamine, p-nitrophenol, trichoderma, volume activity.

African Journal of Biotechnology, Vol 13(45) 4246-4250